She had, however, the consolation of telling her next door neighbor, who was too sick to accept her invitation, what an “elegant supper she had, and how much it had cost her.” She enumerated the number of empty bottles that _had_ been full, the loaves of sugar that were broken up, and the hundreds of pounds of ice that had been used for freezing, &c., &c. The dozens of eggs, the ounces of gelatin! She had followed Miss Leslie’s receipts, “and,” added she, taking breath, “you know, Mrs. Hill, that you _must_ go to vast expense for that, as she directs you to take the best of every thing.” Mrs. Hill did not doubt it, and as she afterward told her sister, heard an account so minute of the costs of the entertainment, that she could easily have made out the bills for the city confectioners and grocers. “But she did not tell me who were her guests, Eda; and I really had no opportunity of asking,” said she, smiling. “Now I might have learned something more interesting for your benefit.” “Not for mine, Fanny,” returned Miss Seymour, laughing. “Poor Mrs. Jones! she could not tell you that Mrs. Macfuss did not accept her polite invitation, and in _her_ absence, she considered her rooms empty. Is she not a host within herself?” “I should like to have seen _her_ reception of Mrs. Jones’s envelopes and cards,” exclaimed young Seymour, rising from the sofa, and seating himself at his sister’s side. “It is certainly a bore to have such vulgarians thrust themselves among us. Fancy your compliance with the request I heard her make _you_, Eda, to ‘Come over and be intimate!’” “You may look as disdainful as you please, my exclusive brother,” said Mrs. Hill, laying her white hand upon his own, “but I prophecy Mrs. Jones’s rise in the world of fashion as a thing of certain occurrence, as much as we all now laugh at and despise her vulgarity and ignorance. She will be as well considered as you or I, and more, for she has wealth, and we have only education and high-breeding.” “Tell it not in Gath! What, Macfusses and all, Fanny!” cried her brother. “Impossible! No one is a prophet in his own country, my dear sister, and thus I console myself for the shock you have given me.” “_Nous verrons, ce que nous verrons_, Harry,” said Mrs. Hill, smiling, “but I think I am right. Human nature is the same all over the world, and I have learned to study it of late years. Did not Lady Montague write, that wherever she had gone in her travels in Europe and the East, she met with ‘men and women!’” “Very true, Fanny, but if what you predict comes to pass, I shall play Timon of Athens, and fly to Texas.” “O, lame and impotent conclusion!” said Eda, rising and running her fingers over the harp-strings, sending a full, clear strain through the apartment. “‘If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that surfeiting—’